


I am and have been

by NekoAisu



Series: Wondrous Tails 2020 [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Altered Mental States, Angst, Bad end, Body Horror, Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, M/M, Named Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Specific Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), True Names
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:55:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23122843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NekoAisu/pseuds/NekoAisu
Summary: G’raha Tia was a simple man. The Calamity changed that.
Relationships: G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light
Series: Wondrous Tails 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1659850
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	I am and have been

**Author's Note:**

> Wondrous Tails fill for Summon and Tempering

G’raha Tia believed himself to be a simple man. He read, he wrote, he suffered at the hands of strict Sharlayan tutors, and spent every Friday night glued at the hip with Krile Baldesion so they can complain about Allag and APA formatting all evening long. 

It was simple. A little boring at times, too. 

He had no need for aught else. 

Then, there came the Warrior of Light. He looked at him with vague confusion at all hours and eyed his books like they were snakes. G’raha learns that he is illiterate and a little past anxious. A man made of many consequences and too little sleep.

“Should I die,” he says, quietly picking at his shirt seams, “could you possibly… possibly see me. When I wake. After a Raise, I mean.”

G’raha nods, taking a deep drink from his flask and silently noting how they flinch and watch him with terrible suspicion. “If you will have me greet you instead of an angel, so be it.”

He earns a smile. A little and nearly unnoticeable release of tension. 

“Do you know my name?”

“Titles, yes,” he replies. “Surname? Maybe. Those around here are fond of  _ adventurer  _ and the all-powerful  _ Warrior of Light.” _

“It’s, ah… a little… uh… intimate. To tell you.”

G’raha smiles and it is not all innocent intent. “Well, you may call me “Raha” if so inclined. It is a more familiar form of my name.”

“I go by Celio,” the Warrior (now Celio) replies. “That is not my true name. Those of the Wood oft take on other names when we leave. That we may better fit in. With others.”

“So you are Celio first and the Warrior of Light second?”

“I am not the Warrior of Light,” he says, frowning. “That is my friend’s title. I carry it during his absence, that he may recuperate safely and have little worry of the duties he has missed.”

“And that would work due to the nature of Eorzean storytelling, I take it?”

“It is as you say.”

G’raha nods. “Well, if nothing else, you make a compelling stand-in, Celio.”

“Is that a name you are…  _ satisfied _ ? Is that the word? To use?”

“If it is what makes you the most comfortable, I am amenable. Though,” he says, scooting over on his bedroll to place a hand very obviously on Celio’s thigh, “I would  _ love  _ to be intimate with you.”

Celio flushes so many shades of pink and red that it would be worrying had he not squeaked a surprisingly confident reply of, “It is not.”

“And what would a better name be?”

“Yerhe.”

G’raha leans in, internally curses their difference in height, and asks, “So, Yerhe, care to get to know me a little better?”

And he accepts, though with a large amount of awkwardness and fumbling. 

When he dies, it is not to the crackling magicks of the Tower of its residents. It is instead to the machinations of an Empire set on domination no matter the cost. 

G’raha is not there to greet him. He does not wake. 

The Calamity shakes the foundations of the Tower so strongly that it is a wonder the wards did not break earlier. He drags himself to the doors. Expects familiar faces or their descendants, perhaps. 

He gets lungfuls of ash and smoke, the bitter tang of acid when he collapses to heave weakly onto the dirt. 

Before him, there is only the weeping aether of a land poisoned. 

He meets with the Ironworks shortly thereafter. They tell him, all quiet and terrified, that the Warrior of Light died many a year back. When he asks which it was, they tell him it wouldn’t matter. 

They were found together, lying collapsed within the Scion headquarters. 

They are not the only casualties. 

Things kick into gear once the secrets of Allag are exposed. G’raha pushes himself to take his birthright into his own hands. It pushes back. Shoves, really. 

His body responds in a wash of blue crystal that spreads a little more with every year.

He tries to undo the effects of Black Rose best he can. It never works. 

His last resort is a terrible one. He would leave them. Hop timelines. Hope he lands in the right place at the right time. 

And he does, though the burden makes him wish his head was crystal, too. There is nothing he would not give to save them, too. 

But this new timeline is the only hope he has of preventing that tragedy from ever happening. 

So he summons. He says names and thinks and of faces and  _ prays.  _ That therein is the problem. 

He is made of crystal, a powersource in his own right, and what he pulls from the Between is not anyone he knew. 

_ “What a good boy you are, Raha,”  _ this terrible being says to him.  _ “Here to wake me as promised. All mine.” _

And it hits him that perhaps the ears are not as long (or at all like that of the Viera, anymore) and the body is deformed in swaths that look like woodgrain, but that is  _ Yerhe.  _

He tries to unsummon him, to shove the aether back where it came from, but Yerhe simply picks him up and asks,  _ “Will you mot stay with me? I miss you, my Raha.” _

And with the burn of one silvered tear falling from his face, G’raha feels himself slipping. 

Why would he leave? What could the world give him when he has all he wants right here?

“I am not,” he says, unthinking. “I would not.”

_ “So lovely. So good. All mine.” _

“Gladly, my Yerhe.”

**Author's Note:**

> im sorry raha


End file.
